Physics 8: C7 determine the density of various substances. C8: explain the relationship between pressure, temperature, area, and force in fluids

Plate tectonics. A Theory that draws on many disciplines and illustrates the scientific method.

1. Hook: Use a funny/interesting little movie clip to get the students engaged. Here are two of our favorite clips:

2. Introduction: Display the outline of the scientific method to refer back to. Discuss each part of the method.

3. Watch video: presentation of the plate tectonic theory. Ask students to think about the scientific method while watching the video.

4. Matching exercise: Hand out a piece of evidence on a q-card to each student (photo of a fossil, map of earth, mountain range, rocks, graph correlation). Have the students move around and try to find other pieces of evidence that come from the same discipline (physics, math, geology, biology, chemistry.)

5.Hypothesis: With students broken up into their disciplines have them use their evidence to hypothesize how it could support the Theory of Plate Tectonics.

6. Collaborate: pair up each discipline with another one (math with biology, geology with physics.) Have each group present their hypothesis to it’s partner group. And the listening group write up: If they believe the other groups hypothesis and why or why not. And one way to test that hypothesis.

Lesson Two:

6. Present the evidence:Give a power point lecture that outlines the evidence from each discipline and how it was used to support the theory.